


to build a home

by elisela



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Domestic Fluff, Getting Together, Kid Fic, M/M, Single Parent Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28583658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/pseuds/elisela
Summary: “You realize you’re at least ten grand over budget on Stiles’ house, don’t you,” Allison says, and he’s not entirely sure if it’s a question or not. “You better hope this works out because we can’t afford to build an entire house for everyone you want to date.”He doesn’t bother denying it. “I’m going to do a lot of the demo and installation myself,” he says, leaning over her to cross off some of the numbers she’d written down. “It’ll work out.”
Relationships: Allison Argent & Derek Hale, Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 31
Kudos: 653





	to build a home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spinningincircles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinningincircles/gifts).



> For Lauren on her birthday--knowing you has made the last year a good one despite a global pandemic and all the other craziness. Thank you for for being you 💜

“We agreed on five,” Allison says, reaching across the table to slap a hand down on the pile of listing print-outs sitting in front of Erica. “You’re amassing quite a collection here.”

“What’s wrong with having options?” Erica asks, batting Allison’s hand away and curling her arms protectively around the papers. “I need time to look them over and for Derek to work his magic.” She glances at the paper Allison holds out a moment later, looking it over quickly before tossing it into the center of the table. “I’ll narrow it down later.”

Derek shakes his head and picks up the paper she’d dismissed, studying the photos and floor plan carefully before lifting up the post-it Boyd had stuck over the list price and passing it off to Allison. They do this the old-fashioned way for his benefit; if Allison had her way, they’d just get Boyd to email them the listings and be done with it. But even after eight years of being in the business, he still gets overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information on the online listings—he doesn’t need to know estimated payments, exact GPS coordinates, or sale and tax history; he just wants a layout and few pictures so he can get an idea of how much work will have to go into the house to make it worth flipping. “I’m not working my magic on twenty different options,” he says, glancing up at Erica. “Narrow it down.”

“You ruin all my fun,” she says, but she picks the papers back up and shuffles through them as Derek takes the last listing and scans it before shaking his head and moving it along.

Picking five listings each is their routine, but Derek doesn’t think he’s ever actually found five he thinks are worth looking at in person, and today is no different. He’s only put his initials on three of them—two of which Erica had passed on, and he hadn’t kept track of what Allison was doing, but he thinks she’d probably been interested in at least two of them. After so many years working together he knows her thought process, knows what she looks for in the bones of a house and what she automatically passes on. They used to just mark every listing they thought had potential, but as the business—and their skills—grew, the time it took to debate the merits of each took longer and longer until Allison had put her foot down and demanded they start limiting their selections.

He leans back in his seat and reaches for his coffee, swirling his lukewarm latte around the ceramic mug before downing the rest and standing up, crooking an eyebrow at Allison in a silent question until she nods and pushes her empty cup towards him. Erica waves him off without looking, so he gathers Allison’s empty mug with his own and drops them off in the bus bin before making his way to the counter. He’s just moved over to wait for the drinks at the counter when Stiles comes in, opening the door with a sharp bang and an apologetic look, bringing in a wave of heat with him.

Stiles hasn’t so much as _looked_ at him and he feels like his heart is ready to beat out of his chest. 

He forces himself to look away, examining the succulent prints on the wall that have been up since the coffee shop opened, tracing his eyes over the flowering saguaro and the towering century plant so that his eyes don’t stray to the smattering of moles on Stiles’ cheek, the ones he could trace with his eyes closed. The barista, thankfully, slides his drinks across the bar before Stiles is finished ordering, and Derek doesn’t hesitate to grab them and head for the safety of his table. 

Most of the listings are cleared when he gets back, just a few left in the middle of the table, Erica and Allison each examining them again. He sets Allison’s drink near her elbow and sits back down, reaching for the two listings he didn’t mark himself. 

“You should talk to him,” Allison whispers, nodding her head at where Stiles is pulling a laptop out of his bag, a notebook and two pens spilling to the ground as the computer gets set down gently on the table. “What’s it been, six months? Take a chance, Derek.”

Six months that he’d _told_ her about, maybe, but Stiles has been coming to this coffee shop for as long as Derek has—not that he’s ever going to admit to Allison that the pining has been going strong for nearly two years. He’d never intended to let Allison find out at all—much less Erica—except she’d been with him the day Stiles had stumbled straight into him in January and rambled apologies as he’d patted Derek’s chest before snatching his hands away like he’d been burned. Derek had felt himself blush to the tips of his ears as Stiles’ hands stroked down him, and Allison had been gently encouraging him ever since. 

He should, at one point, tell her that Stiles is already married.

“I like the place on Pine,” he says, pushing the listing towards her. “We could knock down the wall between the dining room and den to open the space up if it’s not load bearing—those windows would give the kitchen more light, and we’d double the amount of livable space if we finished the basement.”

Allison looks at him for a moment longer, brow furrowed, then takes the paper from him. “Derek, this place is a murder shack. The basement would cost a fortune to finish—those are concrete floors, for the love of God, and I bet that insulation is decades old—you’re the only one who picked this listing for a reason, you know. Did you see the one on Marin? It’d be a quick flip—”

“It’s summer, we don’t need a quick flip,” he says, but he takes the paper from her anyway. The property is nothing special; he’s not sure he’d really need to do any structural work at all, just whatever upgrades Allison decided on. 

Erica shoves a paper across the table, talking about lot size and square footage, but Derek’s attention strays over to Stiles’ table and her voice fades into background noise. He’s got a grey hoodie on, faded Sheriff’s department logo over his heart, one of the drawstrings looped up and stuck in his mouth, and Derek’s mouth goes dry as he watches Stiles’ tongue move around it, poking into his cheek and sweeping out of his mouth in constant motion as he types furiously, head bobbing slightly to an unknown beat. He’s not sure how long he watches, eyes on Stiles’ slightly chapped pink lips, but Allison draws his attention back with a nudge of her elbow eventually and he tries not to look startled. 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says without a clue as to what he’s agreeing with. It doesn’t matter—Allison’s usually the one who makes the decisions anyway, and he trusts her. He waits until they’re all standing and clearing the table to lean over to Allison. “Which properties?”

“Everett and Pine,” she whispers back, shaking her head with a grin. “But Erica also hates Pine, so start thinking about how we can expand the kitchen space and add another bathroom into Everett.”

Stiles doesn’t look up as Derek passes, but then again, he never does. 

Summer rolls by slowly; Derek spends the morning out at job sites, trying to get the bulk of his outdoor work done in the morning before the heat presses in for the day and he can escape to his air conditioned office for a few hours of paperwork and design. They buy the house on Everett and he passes the last few weeks in July tearing down walls and reframing, making excuses to avoid the tile shop with Allison and spending too many nights painting after the sun sets, eating take out while sprawled out on newly installed flooring and arguing over landscaping choices. 

He avoids the coffee shop after Stiles walks in the door in early June with his family, his daughter poking at his nose from her place on his hip and wife tapping furiously at her phone as she trails after them. Derek feels a surge of ugliness in his chest as he watches them, a bitter jealousy that startles him so much that he can’t even enjoy the way that Stiles smiles brightly at him as his eyes scan the seating area. His wife never looks up from her phone, and he finds himself irritated by that, that she is so easily able to ignore her family when it’s everything he wants to just talk to Stiles. He tells Allison about it later that day, slouched down next to her on the porch swing they’d just installed, secrets and feelings rushing out of him like a dam has broken. She responds by setting him up with friends of hers, dates that start out awkwardly and end worse until he finally refuses to go on another one.

It’s not until the house on Everett is almost finished—all they need is the landscaping work done, something Derek is happy to outsource for as long as the humidity threatens to suffocate him—that Erica and Boyd show up to the weekly Hale family dinner holding a new stack of listings, waving them in the air to get Derek’s attention. He scoops up the tennis ball Sadie had dropped at his feet and throws it towards Erica, grinning as the dogs race towards her until she shrieks and ducks behind Boyd.

“Cruel,” she says, eyes narrowed, when he jogs over, jabbing a finger in his direction. “They’re muddy, Derek, you know I hate that. You can get me a drink to make up for it.”

He rolls his eyes and reaches down to pry the ball out of Penny’s mouth, throwing it towards the river and wiping his hands on his jeans. “Get your own drink,” he says. “I thought you instituted a ‘no work’ rule after we spent St. Patrick’s day yelling at each other instead of going out drinking, what are those for?”

Erica gives him a look. “You’ve ignored all my texts about meeting at the coffee shop and you’re both putting in twelve hour days, when else are we supposed to do this? We didn’t bring many, but Boyd found some really great options and you know business slows down around October. I figured having a few projects would help you pretend you’re busy and not just moping.”

“I’m not moping,” he protests, leading them around the corner to the shaded back patio of his family’s house, grabbing a few bottles out of the cooler and popping the tops off as they make their way towards the loungers. 

Erica kisses his cheek when he hands one over, drags her chair into the sun before flopping down, and looks over at him. “Isaac didn’t work out, then?”

Derek groans as he shakes his head, grinning despite himself. “I think I made him nervous,” he admits, glancing over at Erica. “He kept backtracking every time he said something; we didn’t even make it all the way through dinner. He said there was an emergency halfway through and bolted.”

Even Boyd laughs, reaching over the smack a hand against Derek’s bicep. “I told her it wouldn’t work,” he says, looking at his wife fondly. “Don’t worry, she’s out of friends to hook you up with now.”

“I might be out of friends now, but I’ll figure something out,” Erica says in a way that’s probably not supposed to be threatening but certainly sounds like it to Derek. “I’ll stalk your coffee shop kid first—unless you want to tell me what it is about him that you like so much.”

“Let it go,” Boyd says, reaching over for her hand. “He already told you two to stop.”

“Spoilsport,” Erica says, sticking her tongue out. “Where’s Allison? Let’s get this done before your mom brings the food out.”

“Holy shit,” Allison whispers, and Derek would make fun of the way her mouth dropped open if he wasn’t having the exact same reaction. “This is—wow. Did it look this bad in the pictures?”

He trails his eyes over the mismatched carpeting—bright red in the living room giving way to a green hallway—and the peeling floral wallpaper, showing just the corner of a bright yellow wall underneath. There are water stains showing through the popcorn ceiling, and in the corner, a green steel staircase with paint flaking off. “Maybe this is the worst,” he says, pressing a hand against her lower back and pushing her over the threshold. “Let’s check out the kitchen.”

“I don’t like the look of this ceiling,” Allison says, giving it a worried look. “Can you reach it? Does it look wet to you?” He can barely get his fingertips to it when he stretches, but when he does, they come away damp and he wipes them off on her wrist, nudging against her when she shudders. “Do we even need to see more?”

“I think we should see how much worse it gets,” Derek says. A water leak isn’t great, but it doesn’t have to be the reason they pass on a house, though this was meant to be an easy project to work on through the winter. Allison peels off from him while he wanders around the kitchen, turning down a hallway as he kicks at the laminate floor of the kitchen and opens cabinets.

“Derek! This bathroom is completely pink!” she calls, and he finds her standing wide-eyed in the doorway, one hand loosely covering her mouth as she gapes. “Even the shower stall! What were they thinking?”

He opens his mouth to respond but a clattering on the stairs draws his attention away, and little hands shove at his knees; when he looks down, there’s a little girl standing in the bathroom, hands on her hips as she looks around. She looks vaguely familiar, but Derek’s been in the renovation business so long that he just assumes any familiar face belongs to someone whose house he’s worked on. “Was this a princess bathroom? Dad! There’s a princess bathroom here!” she yells before she darts back out, shouldering Derek to the side. 

“Must have been a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome if a princess lived here,” Allison says, grabbing for his arm. “Come on, let’s go see if we can check out how bad that leak is upstairs.”

The upstairs is, if possible, worse than the downstairs. Every bedroom has the same bright red carpeting, and all but one of them have rough wooden shelves nailed to the walls. Derek’s worked on some ugly houses in his career, but this tops the list. He’s halfway under the counter of the sink in the master bedroom, flashlight in hand to see how bad the leaking pipes are, when he hears the little girl skip into the room behind him, humming under her breath.

“Mom would _hate_ this room,” she says, and there are twin snorts of laughter in response.

“Mom would hate this whole house,” someone says, and Derek frowns as he presses his hand against the wooden cabinets and feels it give, because he knows that voice, he just can’t place it.

“You did say she—”

“—was welcome _any time_ ,” the guy says again, and his voice sounds like a warning.

“Stiles,” someone sighs, and Derek nearly hits his head on the sink when he jerks up out of shock, “this house is a wreck _and_ it’s at the top of your budget. You could get something nicer if you didn’t insist on having a room for Lydia whenever she comes to visit.”

“I’m not making her stay at a hotel,” Stiles says. “It’s not—it’s not that bad, is it? We could get a few rugs and paint, right?”

Derek pulls himself out of the space below the sink and brushes his hands off on his jeans. Married or not—and maybe not, going by that conversation—there’s no way Stiles should buy this disaster of a house. “It’s that bad,” he says, turning to face them, and feels a strange sense of gratification at the way Stiles’ jaw drops and his whole body jolts backwards for a moment, knocking him straight into his friend. There’s not a lot of topics Derek is comfortable discussing with strangers so this opportunity feels almost like a miracle. “There’s a slow leak there that’s rotted out part of the floor and given the water damage you can see from the living room, I’d say at least ten grand to fix.”

Stiles groans, throwing a hand up in the air, and Derek tries for what he hopes is a casual glance at his left hand—his very bare, ring-free left hand. Before he says anything, Allison leans in the door, looking around the room in horror. “Foundation is sagging near the den,” she says. “If Boyd can talk them way down in price it might be a good deal for us but it needs a major overhaul and I’m not sure we have the time right now.” She looks between him and Stiles and her face brightens. “I’ve seen you at the coffee shop, haven’t I? I’m Allison, I think you’ve met Derek?”

Stiles’ friend whips around and looks at him and Stiles clears his throat loudly, cheeks flushing, and Derek just hopes that whatever he’s said to his friend about him—because it’s clear that he has—was less along the lines of _the guy stalking me at the coffee shop_ and more _the guy I dream about at night_.

“Yeah, I’ve spilled at least two drinks on Derek in the last few years,” Stiles says. “It’s nice to officially meet you, though. This is my buddy Scott and Lily’s—well, she’s somewhere,” he says, glancing around and shrugging. “I guess foundation issues probably aren’t a cheap fix so—” he stops and sighs. “It’s fine, Lydia would have probably killed me if I bought this place.”

“Lydia would have burned it to the ground and demanded you thank her,” Scott says, rolling his eyes. “There’s still one more, buddy, think positive.”

“Is it the open house on Cedar? They’ve already got two offers,” Allison says. “Do you have an agent? Ours—”

“I can help,” Derek says. He knows Allison is trying to help, but hooking Stiles up with Boyd means Stiles eventually meeting Erica, and that’s something Derek can do without for now. “Aly and I flip houses, so—if you want, I can help you.”

“Yes,” Scott says immediately, and Derek watches in amusement as Stiles elbows him hard. “He wants that. Do you have a card? Or can he just get your number?”

Derek can’t make himself get out of the car.

It’s surreal to think that after two years—two years of watching Stiles, of doing a terrible job at trying to stop himself from eavesdropping, of wondering—he’s supposed to walk through the door to the coffee shop to see him. For as much as he tells himself it’s just for work—and he’s told himself that a lot because wedding ring or not there’s a chance Stiles is still married, or not over his ex—he can’t help the nerves, the low-grade anticipation, the desire to cast himself in a good light so that Stiles is interested. He has no issue with the work; it’s what he’s good at, and if Stiles was seriously considering the last open house then Derek has no doubt that he’ll be able to find him a place that can be fixed up to his liking—it’s just the rest of it that he’s not sure about. It’s been a long time since he’s tried flirting with someone who he was interested in for more than a night.

Of course, nothing is going to happen if he can’t make himself get out of the car.

He should have insisted Allison come along. She’d never let him sit in the car for ten minutes, worrying, she’d pull him out by the ear if she had to and then proceed to talk him up to Stiles like he was the second coming of Christ himself. She might still, if he called her and begged, but he knows she’s out with Erica and the idea of her crashing the meeting is enough to get him up and moving towards the door. 

Stiles is already at a table; his head snaps up as soon as Derek walks in and he jerks an arm up in a half wave, motioning to the two cups of coffee sitting in front of him and nearly knocking them over in the process. “I ordered for you,” he says as soon as Derek starts to sit down across from him. “Is it weird that I knew your order? I mean I’ve been seeing you here for years now and vanilla latte isn’t that difficult to remember but Scott says it’s weird how much attention I paid to you—not that I was paying attention! It just, you know, I notice things. And remember them.”

Derek tilts his head down and tries not to smile too much—he knows Stiles’ drink order, too, but definitely not just from idly noticing. “Thanks,” he says, looking up at Stiles and reaching for the drink. Allison had told him not to jump straight into talking about houses, to try and feel things out first, but Derek has no clue how to do that without suffering through ridiculous small talk so he just goes with what he knows. “I brought some current listings from Boyd—he’s our realtor,” he says, setting his portfolio on the table. “I heard Scott say that the house on Fairview was at the top of your budget so I have some that are comparable in size but cheaper so you have some room for upgrades and cosmetic changes.”

“Probably anything is better than that,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “Did you and your wife put in an offer? Allison, right?”

“Aly’s my sister, we run a design-build contracting company together,” he says, making a face, “and we passed on it. Business slows down in the winter so we try to line up a few places that don’t need a lot of work and that definitely didn’t qualify.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and his face brightens. “In that case, Scott thought she was really cute. Is she single? I don’t normally do the matchmaking thing but he’s been tragically single for too long and if I don’t set him up I’m going to have to rustle up enough money for another bedroom because he might never leave.”

Derek drums his fingers on the table for a moment; frankly, he thinks anyone is better than Allison’s last boyfriend, and he’s overheard enough conversations between Stiles and Scott over the last two years to know that he’d at least treat her nicely. “I’ll ask if she’s interested,” he says, and huffs out a breath of laughter when Stiles fist pumps. He grabs for the portfolio and hesitates with his hand on it before he adds, “she’s been trying to set me up lately so I can probably use that against her,” because it’s not like it would hurt for Stiles to know he’s single.

Stiles, halfway to bringing his coffee up to his lips, squeezes the cup and the lid pops up, coffee splashing down onto the table as his lips part in shock. “Oh, fuck,” he says, pushing Derek’s portfolio out of the way, flinching when his hand lands on Derek’s and jerking it backwards.

Well, it’s nice to see that Derek’s not the only disaster.

They get the mess cleaned up and Derek tries not to look too closely at the patches of red that stain Stiles’ cheeks and the embarrassed, downward tilt of his head as he chews on the corner of his bottom lip. “A few of these only have three bedrooms,” he says, pulling out the listings; he finds the whole thing endearing, God help him, but Stiles is clearly uncomfortable. “I know Fairview had four, and I’d overheard you say something about needing an extra room for Lily’s mom, so I don’t know if you were planning on using that as a guest room as well or—”

“Three is fine,” Stiles interrupts. “Lydia—that’s Lily’s mom—she’s the only one who visits us. My dad lives in town and Scott crashes with us sometimes but he just sleeps with me, or we put Lily in my room and he takes hers. Lily keeps trying to get four bedrooms because she’s on a mission to get a younger sister—she hasn’t yet realized that you don’t just go to Target to buy a baby and also that babies are a lot of fucking work, she just keeps telling Lydia and I we should have another one.” 

He toys with his straw for a moment before adding, “I think it’s probably hard for her to understand because, you know, she has a few friends whose parents are divorced but they’re not, uh, civil, and Lydia—well, I loved Lydia for a long time, since middle school, I’ll always love her and it wasn’t a contentious divorce, she just wasn’t really interested in being a parent and I knew that going in, she tried and didn’t care for it and—this is making her look bad, I don’t—” he stops and blows out a breath. “Uh, three bedrooms is fine, is what I’m trying to say.”

It takes a lot of willpower to just nod and not ask for more details, because he wants to know, wants to know how long they were married, how long they’ve been divorced, if Derek has even the smallest chance here. He pulls out the listings instead and they go over them, debating the merits of each place while Derek outlines the changes he could make to the structure and talks up Allison’s ability to make anything look modern. They’re down to two options hours later when Derek gathers everything up and puts it away, pushing his chair back as he stands up. “Do you have a timeline for getting into a house?” he asks, and when Stiles makes a face and shakes his head, he picks his portfolio up. “I want to show you a different place,” he says, and sends Stiles a text with the address to the house on Pine. 

They pull up fifteen minutes later, just as the sun is hovering over the horizon. “I don’t think I saw this one,” Stiles says, stumbling out of his Jeep, and Derek pushes himself away from his car and leads them up the walkway. 

“It likely didn’t match any of your search criteria,” he says, tapping the code Boyd had given him into the lockbox and taking out the key. “Stiles—this place is a wreck. I’ll tell you that now. Allison and Erica—she manages everything for us—they vetoed me twice on buying this property because it needs a lot of work. But it’s structurally sound and it’s been on the market for five months, so we can probably get them to go down on the price, and I can make all the renovations fit your budget.”

Stiles eyes him warily for a moment, then nods, and follows Derek into the house. 

He flips on the lights as they go from room to room, quiet at first, just letting Stiles get a feel for the place. It’s closed off in the way that most houses built in the 30’s are, small doorways leading from room to room, but there are features that make it worth it: large bay windows in both the small front room and living room, a bigger than average kitchen for the era, and the original hardwood floors in relatively good condition underneath the laminate. 

“Lydia would kill me,” Stiles says when he finally makes it back down to where Derek’s waiting in the front hall. “There’s only one bathroom upstairs and a half down here.”

“Erica had the same complaint,” Derek says, and starts to talk him through the renovations. “We can open up all these doorways and round them off, which keeps the feel of the era in the house but gives you a better line of sight and more light throughout. The half-bath is small, but we can push this wall out and borrow some space from the front room, which will get more light once the landscaping is taken care of, because the bushes on that side of the house overrun the yard.”

“It would be a good office,” Stiles says, taking another look at it before turning back to Derek. “Right now I’m mostly at the coffee shop when I need to work, it’d be nice to have the space.” Derek knows it sounds awkward when he asks what Stiles does for work, but Stiles just grins at him. “My day job—what Lily calls my “real job”, because she heard my dad say it once—is copy-editing, but I’m just doing that for a steady income. I’m a novelist. I have a series out, uh, maybe you’ve heard of it? _Under the Silver Moon_? It’s about werewolves—Scott used to be a little obsessed with werewolves in high school and I started writing them to mess around but Lydia thought they were good and helped me shop them around.”

Derek mostly sticks to non-fiction and historical novels, but he’s already making a mental note to buy the series. “I’ll check them out,” he says, and takes the opportunity to press his hand against the small of Stiles back to steer him towards the kitchen. “The bathroom upstairs is structurally fine; Allison can do some upgrades but the nice thing is it backs one of the closets in the master bedroom, which means we can easily access the plumbing and can build in a second bathroom and turn it into a suite. But what I wanted to show you was the basement,” he says, opening the door and finally taking his hand off Stiles. 

“You’re not going to chop my body up down here, are you?” Stiles asks, and his laughter sounds a little nervous.

“Allison did say it looked like a murder shack,” Derek admits, pulling the chain to turn the light on. “The main floors give you the space you need, but the real work is in finishing the basement space. I’ve checked the wiring; it’s all good, we’d just need to run it to switches instead of pull chains. The insulation needs to be torn out and redone, but you’ve got a great amount of space in here. We could enclose the staircase and build out a laundry room on one side and storage on the other, and the rest could either be left open as a family room or closed into bedrooms. We’d have to be creative with the lighting, though, because you can see there are only half windows on either side.”

“And all that is in my budget?” Stiles asks doubtfully. “That seems like a lot of work.”

“It’s listed high, but I think Boyd can talk them down,” Derek says, stepping back so Stiles can go back upstairs, “and I know the renovations sound steep but we can get a lot out of it, especially if we’re careful about the materials we use. There are other things you can do to drive down the cost, too, like doing the demo on your own so I don’t have to hire a crew, doing the painting yourself, and putting up the drywall.”

Stiles is quiet as Derek locks the house back up, wandering around the side to look at the backyard and sighing a few minutes later as he leans against the door to his Jeep. “I always wanted to live in a place where I could put a tire swing up for Lily,” he admits. “I’m not great at imagining how things will look, but I’ll trust you.”

“I can send you the drawings I did,” Derek offers, and Stiles’ grin softens a little as he looks at him. 

“I’d like that,” Stiles says. “I know you said you’ve been busy lately but—you used to go to the coffee shop on Monday’s so if you’re—not that I was—uh, I’ll be there tomorrow,” he says, yanking his door open. “Maybe I’ll see you?”

Derek’s got to get the drywall up on the addition to the Miller’s house and has three jobs to give estimates for, and really should get started early because Allison might kill him where he stands if he doesn’t finish the Miller’s job on time. “I’ll be there,” he says, and tries not to make it look like he’s watching as Stiles drives away. 

After weeks of avoiding the coffee shop it’s a little ridiculous that Derek’s now having to stop himself from going in constantly just to see Stiles. He tries to stick to his old routine and only goes on Monday’s, but finds the itch under his skin too much to bear by the time Thursday rolls around and ends up stopping in between job sites most weeks. Stiles always smiles at him, wide and bright, like he’s delighted to see Derek, and clears off a spot at his table even if Derek says he’s just getting his drink to go. 

It starts off related to the house—Stiles tells him about putting an offer in (a story that Derek had already gotten out of Boyd, but stays quiet and listens to Stiles’ exuberant retelling regardless), insists on buying Derek coffee to celebrate when it’s accepted, but soon enough they move from debating the merits of additional bedrooms against a large family room and whether or not any respectable bay window has a built-in bench to talking about their lives. It’s more than Derek ever thought he’d have with Stiles, and still not enough. There are times that he knows Stiles is flirting with him, looks that make it clear that Stiles is attracted to him—but it never goes beyond that, and Derek isn’t sure he should push. 

“Please tell me that Allison is into Scott,” Stiles says the next time Derek sees him, head pillowed in his arms and muffling his voice with his hoodie up over his head. “I know they’ve only been on three dates but Scott’s already planning the wedding. Just let me know if I need to break his heart gently.”

“Three dates and seven _we talked all night’_ s,” Derek says, pushing his chair closer to Stiles as he mimics Allison’s breathy, dreamy voice. “I think Scott’s safe.”

“He sent me a Pinterest board, Derek,” Stiles moans. He turns his head and rolls his eyes. “A Pinterest board!”

Derek shakes his head as he laughs, reaching over to settle his hand on the back of Stiles’ neck and squeezing gently. He’s trying not to be pushy, but Stiles is tactile and touches him frequently, little pats the knee as they sit together or a lingering hand on Derek’s arm. It took Derek a while to realize that Stiles liked to be touched in return—something he’s only too happy to indulge in. “I don’t think she’s at the wedding planning phase yet, so we’ll just keep that to ourselves.”

Stiles makes a disgusted noise and sits up. “I had to listen to the play by play of their last date for _hours_. I think I spent longer listening to it than they spent on the actual date. _Her eyes look like the moon, Stiles_ ,” he mimics, rolling his eyes. “I _still_ can’t figure out how, but if I asked it would have just set him off on another tangent so I just filed it away to make fun of later.”

Derek laughs and lets his hand fall, reaching for the drawings he brought with him. “Allison’s not in that deep yet,” he admits, “but she does really like him.”

“Oh, no one is ever in as deep as Scott is in the beginning,” Stiles says, pulling the papers close once Derek sets them on the table. “My boy will fall in love in the time it takes to offer someone his pen. What’s all this? I thought you said we had to finalize the design before I closed.”

“I took another look at the basement,” Derek says, tapping the drawing. “You couldn’t seem to decide what to do down there so this is an alternative plan—we can keep the open family room in the front but put another bedroom in the back, along with a bathroom. The walls are already open so it’s no issue to access the plumbing and build it out.”

Stiles frowns down at the paper, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he brings his hand up and rubs at the back of his neck, right where Derek had been touching a moment ago. “You’re sure this is in the budget?”

“I wouldn’t give you options that weren’t,” Derek says. 

“Alright, looks good,” Stiles says, and when Derek tilts his head and looks at him, surprised it had been so easy, Stiles laughs. “I said I trusted you, dude, we’ll do whatever you think is best. How’d you and Allison get into all this stuff, anyway?”

Derek had meant to just stop by to give Stiles the new designs; he’s been trying to finish up other jobs before Stiles closes on the house, because he knows he’s going to want to give it his full attention—he’s always been better at saying things with his actions rather than his words—but he finds himself starting to talk, telling Stiles about how he had Allison had built a treehouse together as teenagers for his younger siblings when their parents got married, and how it led to helping with the house renovations that Chris and Talia eventually did. Derek loves working with his hands, loves finding the beauty in already-existing structures and pulling it out, and it wasn’t difficult to decide to go into business with Allison after college. 

He ends up staying at the coffee shop another three hours.

“You realize you’re at least ten grand over budget on Stiles’ house, don’t you,” Allison says, and he’s not entirely sure if it’s a question or not. “You better hope this works out because we can’t afford to build an entire house for everyone you want to date.”

He doesn’t bother denying it. “I’m going to do a lot of the demo and installation myself,” he says, leaning over her to cross off some of the numbers she’d written down. “It’ll work out.”

She sighs. “Derek, we’ll break even if we’re lucky,” she says. “What time are you going over there this afternoon? I was hoping you’d be free to help me, I need to supervise the cabinet installation at the Rickey’s but they’re sending Matt and he gives me the creeps.”

“Should have Erica look into finding a new company if Matt’s that bad,” he mutters. “I can go if you’re leaving soon, I’m taking Stiles and Lily out to dinner at five and then we’re going to go to the house and prep for demo.”

“Ooh, you didn’t tell me you had a date with your man first,” she teases, and proceeds to continue to do so throughout the morning as he helps her finish the backsplash while periodically glaring at Matt Daehler, who somehow seems to end up on their jobs more often than Derek would like and spends more of his time watching Allison than working. By the time she’s finished, he has just enough time to run back to the office, grab the paperwork, and head over to meet Stiles. 

It’s not a date, as much as he’d like to be one—just a friendly dinner, because Stiles had seemed disappointed that both Scott and his dad were working night shifts on the day he closed on the house and wouldn’t be able to celebrate with him. So Derek had offered to take him and Lily out to the pizza place a few blocks down from his office that has been there since he was a kid, ignoring the way his heart had beat twice as fast when Stiles threw his arms around Derek in response. 

Dinner goes by too quickly for Derek—Lily can hardly sit still, running by the table for bites of pizza inbetween shoving tokens into video games and flinging herself into the ball pit repeatedly, Stiles’ foot bumps against his under the table and stays there as he talks with his whole body, and when the pizza has been demolished, he demands Derek play arcade games with him. 

“I used to fight for the high score on this in middle school,” Stiles says, nudging Derek out of the way with his hip as he stops in front of the Pac-Man and pushes on the joysticks until the leaderboard pops up on the screen. “Scott could never beat me but there—argh! Tenth place is a tragedy—where’s my kid, I need to steal her tokens.”

Derek looks at the screen and grins, leans over Stiles’ shoulder and points to the ninth spot. “Aww, look at that,” he says. “DSH—that’s me.”

“You _fucker_ ,” Stiles laughs. “I spent _hours_ trying to beat you! Kinda funny though, I didn’t know you grew up here until I mentioned you to my dad. He told me I didn’t have any reason to know you because you and all your siblings were ‘good kids’, like I wasn’t.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “My mom would be interested to know that the Sheriff considers Cora a good kid,” he says. “Doesn’t he know that she’s the one who dyed all the fountain water red on Valentine’s Day?”

“He will now,” Stiles says. “Seriously though—Lilianna! Give me your tokens, I need to prove once and for all that I’m better than Derek!” His expression shifts wildly as he plays, tongue out and clenched between his teeth or darting out to wet his lips, eyes wide as he jams the joysticks back and forth and slaps the buttons with his whole palm. 

Derek watches him for three rounds before reminding him of the time, and Stiles narrows his eyes before reaching out and punching Derek’s shoulder. “Alright, I’ll let it go for now but this is a new Thursday night Stilinski-Hale tradition, my friend. Get your quarters ready, I’ll beat you eventually.”

They leave soon after, Lily up on Derek’s shoulders as they walk to their cars (he hopes Stiles doesn’t see how his cheeks flush when she arches an eyebrow and says “well, he’s stronger than you, Dad,” as she wiggles her arms impatiently at him) and he wraps one arm around her legs and after a moment, reaches out with the other to rest on Stiles’ shoulders. He feels him tense up for a second, but then his shoulders relax and a moment later, Stiles’ arm slides around his waist.

He grabs the sledgehammers out of the back of his truck when he pulls up to the house, along with a tote bag Allison had sent and waits on the porch. Stiles jangles the keys excitedly before he opens the door and Lily darts past them, stopping dead in the middle of the hall and looking around. “Which way is my room?”

“Upstairs,” Stiles says, and she takes off without another glance. He shakes his head and looks at Derek, motioning to the sledgehammer. “One of those for me?”

“Thought you could take the first swing,” Derek says, pulling the safety goggles out of the bag and tossing them to him, laughing under his breath when Stiles fumbles for them and they fall to the ground. 

“You didn’t see that, I’m smooth as silk,” Stiles says, snatching them up.

“Never happened,” Derek agrees. He directs Stiles to cover the vents with plastic sheeting while he busies himself with the measuring tape, marking off the boundaries of the new doorway before popping the pins on the door and tossing it into the open living room behind them. He picks up one of the sledgehammers from where he’d put them against the wall and hands it to Stiles, only to grab the handle immediately. “You’re going to blow your shoulder out if you swing it like that,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Left hand at the bottom, right hand a few inches from the top.”

Stiles adjusts his hands, and Derek grabs for it again. “What now?” Stiles complains, looking down at his grip. “I did what you said!”

“You’re not turned right,” Derek says, kicking gently at one of his feet. “You have to—no, not that—the other way—” he huffs out a breath and lets go, moving behind Stiles and putting his hands on his hips, turning him. “This isn’t baseball, you can’t just walk up and start swinging, you need to have more control,” he says, nudging his feet closer together before he slides his hands to cover Stiles, pressed up against him. This close, he can smell the faint scent of tea tree oil and peppermint, and he has to take an extra breath to fight the urge to bury his nose in Stiles’ hair. 

He thinks he can feel Stiles’ heartbeat pick up, the warmth of him emanating through the layers he has on, his flannel soft against Derek’s bare forearm. When Stiles speaks, there’s a slight shake in his voice, like he doesn’t quite know what’s going to come out. “I have excellent control.”

“Prove it,” Derek whispers.

Lily comes down after they’ve got half the wall knocked out and stands still as Derek carefully fits safety goggles on her and pulls off his jacket to wrap her in before kneeling behind her and helping her swing at the wall. She laughs each time the plaster cracks, jumping up and down with glee as they edge up to the line Derek had marked off. He’s vaguely aware of Stiles holding his phone out but doesn’t think anything of it until he’s sitting on the couch with Allison later that night and she tilts her phone towards him, pulling up a video Scott had sent her. 

“You and my future niece are adorable,” she says, looping an arm around him and wrestling him down until he’s resting his head against her shoulder, watching himself and Lily on the screen. “Scott says he talks about you all the time, you know, but he hasn’t dated since he and Lydia split.”

“I know,” Derek says, “about the dating thing, at least, he told me a few weeks ago. Said he tried to go on a few dates but he’s worried about how it’ll affect Lily so it didn’t go anywhere.”

“Have you told him you’re interested in him?”

“No,” he says, shifting to grab the bag of chips she has resting on her other side. “Don’t know how, I couldn’t figure out if he was just making conversation or if he was trying to warn me.” Allison swats at his arm when he grabs a handful of chips, but presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Don’t get involved, I don’t want him to feel obligated or whatever.”

“Sure, sure,” Allison says sweetly. “Cross my heart.”

Demolition has never been Derek’s favorite part of renovations. A necessary task, one he’s been contracting out more and more lately—but keeping the cost down on Stiles’ house means doing as much work as he can himself. Most of Derek’s time through October is booked, but Stiles had given him a key, so he lets himself in the next night after spending a full day working on expanding a bathroom for one of his clients and starts prepping the house. Demo is dirty work, kicks up dust and leaves debris everywhere, and he’s more than a little paranoid about damaging the wood floors in the sections where he’d pulled up the laminate flooring and carpet when he was inspecting the house. 

He’s just done with all the prepping when he hears the creak of the front door and the pounding of small feet on stairs, and a moment later Lily flies into the room and leaps at him. 

“Hi, Mr. Derek!” she yells, pulling herself back once she’s safely in his arms and beaming. “Daddy and I were trying to see how long it would take to get to school and we saw the lights on! Daddy said he hoped you weren’t working because it’s almost _bedtime_.”

“Almost your bedtime,” he says, grinning back at her, “but my bedtime isn’t until midnight.”

“You liar,” Stiles says, and Derek glances over to see him leaning against the doorway, looking at them fondly. “A little birdie told me you’re secretly a grumpy old man who goes to bed by nine.”

Lily giggles. “You don’t look like an old man,” she says, tilting her head to study his face, “but maybe grumpy if you don’t smile.” She releases her grip on his arms and pokes her fingers into the corners of his mouth, stretching his lips up into a smile and laughing before she wiggles down. “I’m gonna go look at my room!”

Stiles steps to the side as she runs past. “Actually pick one this time,” he calls after her, rolling his eyes before he turns his gaze towards Derek. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Wanted to get started,” he says, motioning around the room. “Lily kept talking about Santa being able to come down the fireplace—”

“Derek,” Stiles interrupts, walking closer to him, “no one expects this place to be done by Christmas. You said that the basement alone would take weeks—”

“The basement doesn’t need to be finished before you move in,” he says. “I sketched out a timeline and it’ll be close but it’s doable. Barring any unforeseen problems, I can have the main floors finished the week before Christmas.” He has to look away as Stiles watches him, face so soft and open that Derek itches to bridge the distance between them and kiss him. 

Stiles reaches out when he’s close enough to touch, closes the space between them by resting a hand on Derek’s bicep and squeezing. His eyes seek out Derek’s, searching over his face for a moment before he says Derek’s name again, softly this time, a sentence all on its own, and Derek can only stand there, tape held loosely in his hand, hoping.

The moment is broken by a loud crack in the air; Stiles startles and bolts towards the door, calling Lily’s name. Derek rushes out behind him and they find Lily hovering in the bathroom doorway, looking up at them sheepishly. 

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks, hands running over his daughter’s arms as he kneels in front of her, looking worried. 

“I was just playing,” Lily says defensively, and Derek looks over her shoulder to see that the free-floating bathroom sink has been pulled off the wall on one side, and he nudges Stiles and gestures to it. It doesn’t matter to him—his plans included gutting the bathroom, so as far as he’s concerned, she’s helping. 

Stiles sighs. “You’re losing house privileges,” he mutters, and shakes his head. “Say goodbye to Derek, we’re leaving before you manage to pull the ceiling down.”

He’s in the middle of ripping the cabinets out in the kitchen when Stiles texts him the next night, asking if he’s at the house; when he shows up twenty minutes later with bags of Chinese food, Derek feels a slow warmth spread through his chest and gives in to the way his heart flutters. Lily spreads out a blanket on the living room floor under the bay windows and they eat dinner while she chatters about her day at school, relaying all the kindergarten gossip with an air of importance.

Stiles brings him dinner again the next night, and again, and again, and again. Sometimes it’s take-out, but most of the time it’s whatever Stiles had made at home before packing it up and bringing it to share with Derek. Lily starts following him around the house after they’re finished, attempting to help him with demo and asking him questions; when she finds out he has two dogs they have to break for ten minutes while he shows her pictures of his golden retrievers and she demands to meet them. He brings them with him the next day, letting them roam free in the fenced back yard while Lily throws tennis balls off the back patio and shrieks happily as Sadie and Penny run them back to her. 

It’s nice, working side by side with Stiles, and he thinks there’s _more_ now: more looks, more comfortable silence, more of Stiles bringing his hand up to rub his thumb over Derek’s cheek to brush off the dust that sticks to his beard.

He’s in the office sorting out a mix-up with the hauling company about a week after they start the demolition when the door flies open and a woman walks in, brushing her strawberry blond hair off her face as she glances around before heading straight towards him. She watches him with an intensity that makes him uncomfortable while he finishes up on the phone, then says, “Stiles told me you were the cute one from the coffee shop but I honestly don’t think I believed it until just now,” and raises an eyebrow. “Hmm. Good for him. I’d like to see the plans for the house, please, I think we both know he has terrible taste judging from all the plaid.”

“I should probably ask him if that’s okay,” Derek says slowly. He’s only seen Lydia once and she’s never looked up from her phone, but he can see Lily’s features on her face as he looks at her now.

“Oh, no doubt he’s already sent you a series of frantic texts,” she says, pulling a chair over from Allison’s desk and sitting down while Derek reaches for his phone. Stiles has, in fact, sent him texts, starting with _I accidentally told Lydia where your office was_ and ending with _ugh whatever just make sure whatever she wants doesn’t put me over budget not that I think for one second you’re actually paying attention to that because I’m pretty sure my budget doesn’t support you working twelve hour days_.

He grabs for the ipad and pulls up the mock-ups that he and Allison did of the house and slides it over to her, watching her expression as she flips through them quickly. “Acceptable,” she says, “but we need to make some changes. I don’t know what you were thinking when you let him choose laminate countertops but we’d like to switch to quartz, and I’d like to see other options for the drawer pulls in the kitchen as well as the backsplash—subway tiles are overdone. The stain for the floors needs to be darker, and I’d like heated flooring put into all the bathrooms along with heated towel racks—trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

Derek feels a bit like he’s just come out of a boxing match where he was paired with someone well above his weight class. “You can discuss the stain with Allison, she does the design,” he says, “but the rest of that isn’t in his budget.”

“His budget was recently reconsidered,” she says. “When is Allison available?”

“Lydia seems to think I’m a teenager still and incapable of making my own decisions,” Stiles says later that night as he helps Derek haul in the lumber he needs to reframe the new walls. “Sorry if she was harsh, I know she can come across that way.”

“Is she—” Derek sets the planks he’s carrying down carefully, wincing when Stiles lets his tumble down with a sheepish look. 

“A witch? Jury’s still out,” Stiles says as the silence stretches out, adjusting the work gloves Derek had given him and heading back towards the door. Sweat beads at his temple and Derek watches with a dry mouth as he raises his arm to swipe at his forehead, shirt riding up to show a silver of his back. “Seriously, though. What were you going to ask?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Derek says. It had been an ill-advised question in the first place, and he has no real reason to ask it.

Stiles, though, doesn’t let it go. “Come on big guy, I won’t be offended. Just because I love her doesn’t mean I’m not aware of how she comes across, or her more annoying traits. I love Scotty, too, and I can still give you an itemized list of his faults.”

Derek helps stack another load of planks into Stiles’ waiting arms and figures he might as well just go for it. “Is she moving in? She kept saying ‘we’ at the office—we want to change to quartz, we want a darker stain—it seemed like she had a personal investment in the project.”

Stiles snorts. “Lydia considers anything I do to be her business,” he says, “and she uses the royal we for everything. She came to my dad’s station with me once when we were teenagers and I swear I was only talking to my dad for a few minutes and when I came back she was lecturing the administrative assistant. _We put the reports on the top of the filing bin until they’re input into the computer, and then we file the paper copies accordingly_ ,” he mimics in Lydia’s no-nonsense tone. “She’d never even stepped foot inside the station before that!” Stiles shakes his head and looks backwards at Derek, slamming his hip into the porch rail and wincing before he makes his way into the living room and sets the lumber down more gently than he had before.

“She seems like she’s usually the one in charge,” Derek says, evading his gaze, because Stiles hadn’t actually answered the question and he wonders if that means she is.

“She likes to think so,” Stiles says. “Does it—uh, does that matter to you, if she moves in? She’s not, for what it’s worth, but—shit, I’m no good at this. Scott told me I’ve toned the flirting down over the years but I thought, maybe, it was obvious?” He rubs at the back of his neck and a nervous sounding laugh escapes him. “I was planning on asking you out when the house was finished, but I can—if you’re not interested, or if you _are_ we can find time? Not that this isn’t fun, I thought I’d hate all this but I like spending time with you and I thought—”

“Yes,” Derek says, a little worried that if Stiles keeps talking he’ll manage to talk himself out of the whole thing. “Yeah, I’d like that. Any time you’re free.”

Stiles’ mouth drops open. “Just like that? It was that easy? I’ve been agonizing over this for a _year_ and all I had to do was ask?”

Derek’s worked on hundreds of houses over the course of his career, but never like he does with Stiles. Finding time for an actual first date proves difficult, given that Stiles relies solely on Scott and his dad for babysitting services and both of them are currently working night shifts. He thinks about offering up Allison or Erica, both of whom would likely drop everything if he let them know he was going on a date, but he knows Stiles is protective of Lily—rightfully so—and he doesn’t want to suggest anything that might make him uncomfortable.

So they stick to working on the house together, and Derek uses every excuse to touch, to get close. He stretches out behind Stiles as they put up the drywall, pressing too close and wrapping one hand around his hip to hold them together. He works in a tank top despite the weather dropping into the 60s, enjoying the way Stiles’ gaze takes him in and how his hand lingers on Derek’s arms, how he reaches for Derek to steady himself when he trips over nothing, hands sliding down Derek’s chest slowly. 

Stiles’ flirting _is_ obvious now, the way he winks at Derek after spouting off innuendos, or the way he tries to sound casual when he mentions they could have barbecues in the backyard over the summer. He makes lewd jokes while Derek works, taking every opportunity presented to turn the word screw into something filthy sounding, often starting to laugh before he even gets all his words out. Derek responds in kind, tapping him teasingly with the handle of his screwdriver or hammer when Stiles runs his fingers too close to ticklish areas and flicking little drops of paint onto his nose as he paints test patches in the rooms so Stiles can choose the colors. 

But more than that, they spend time just talking and getting to know each other. Stiles tells him about a childhood spent terrorizing deputies and how he and Scott kept trying to set their parents up all throughout high school and college only for them to get together once they gave up. Derek, in turn, tells him how difficult it was to have his mom marry his best friend’s dad and how his siblings had blamed him for it when they were younger, and how he thinks it might have been easier if they’d all been older when it happened. They quietly bond over the loss of a parent, talk about family traditions that they either want to pass down or are happy to get rid of, and eventually, Stiles tells him about his relationship with Lydia and how nervous he is about what Lily’s reaction to him dating again will be.

“She freaked out when Lydia got engaged to Jordan, even though she liked Jordan before that,” Stiles tells him quietly from where they’re putting up crown molding while Lily curls up with her back against Sadie, legs dangling over Penny as she colors. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I still wasn’t ready to accept it and she picked up on that, but I should tell you—I probably should have told you already—my dad says I need to live my life no matter what her reaction is, that she’s a kid and I can’t let her control things like this, but I just don’t think—I don’t have that in me,” he says, sounding hesitant and resigned. “I know that’s not fair to you, and I’m sorry for—”

“She’s your kid,” Derek says, setting the nail gun on the top of the ladder and reaching out to rest his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, thumb brushing against bare skin. “I didn’t expect to come first.”

“That’s kind of a shitty deal for you,” Stiles says, frowning. 

He looks over at Lily for a moment, watching the way she colors with one hand while her other runs through Sadie’s fur, and takes in all the the work he’s done to the downstairs already before looking back at Stiles—Stiles, who brings him dinner every night and drops off coffee in the morning, who sends him meaningless texts just because he was thinking about him, showed Derek a spreadsheet where he had tracked all the hours Derek worked to make sure Derek was charging him enough for the renovations. “Disagree,” he says. “Grab the next section.”

It’s just after Thanksgiving when Stiles stumbles through the front door in the afternoon, Lily tearing in behind him, already calling for Sadie and Penny. He’s making good time on the house; Lydia’s insistence on adding to Stiles’ budget means he hires a crew to help finish the main floors before they tackle the basement, hoping to have the insulation, framing, and dry-wall done before Christmas, and Allison spends most of her day with Derek, painting the upstairs and putting new tile in the bathrooms. 

“Great news, you have tonight off,” Stiles says, tugging his jacket off and throwing it on the stairs. “Lydia’s in town so I finally have a babysitter, and I’m taking you on a date.”

Derek looks down at his paint splattered clothes, covered in chalky white caulk from installing the bathtubs upstairs. “Hope there’s no dress code,” he says, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Lyd’s busy until 5:30, so I’ll pick you up at 6:00,” Stiles says, and then frowns. “You’ll have to text me your address, I just realized I don’t know where you live.”

“Thought everyone knew where the spooky Hale house was,” he says, and Stiles startles a little, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Allison and I still live there, yeah. Our parents are gone most of the year,” he adds. “I kept thinking I’d save money to buy a house when I got married and that just never happened, so I’m … still there.”

Stiles makes a considering noise and shrugs. “I live in the smallest two bedroom shithole this town has, I can’t judge,” he says. “Anyway. Is the arcade fine with you? I thought we’d battle for Pac-Man rights after dinner. High score gets to choose the next date.”

It does something funny to his stomach to know that Stiles is already planning for a second date, but Lily chooses that moment to run past them shrieking, Penny at her heels, and Derek feels his heart sink right back down. “Did you tell her?”

Stiles follows his gaze and visibly deflates. “Oh, I guess—yeah, you’re right, I should—Lillianna Mae! Get your butt in here.” He fidgets for a moment, watching the doorway before snapping his head towards Derek. “Pretty sure I’m more nervous now than I was when I came out to my dad,” he says, “oh, hey, I should tell you that story sometime so you can bring it up around him, he always gets—”

“ _What_ ,” Lily huffs, stomping into the room with her arms crossed. “I was running _carefully_.”

Stiles makes a face at her. “Please go back out and try that one again,” he says, and when she rolls her eyes but obediently leaves the room and comes back in quietly, he nods once and beckons her closer, kneeling down in front of her. Derek has the urge to leave, to stop him—the flirtation he has with Stiles right now is a far cry from the relationship he wants, but if it’s all he gets, he can be happy with it, he thinks, can manage to shift his expectations to friendship. But if it’s all he gets, he’d rather hold onto hope a little longer. “I was going to take Derek out on a date tonight,” Stiles says bluntly, Lily’s hands tucked into his, “but Derek doesn’t want to go unless it’s okay with you, because he knows how important you are to me. What do you think?”

Lily whips around and gives him an assessing look that reminds him too much of Lydia before narrowing her eyes. “If you and Daddy get married, does that mean Penny and Sadie get to come live here?”

Stiles chokes on nothing. “Marriage is—I’m asking for a _date_ , Lily, temper your expectations here.”

“Does that mean no?” she asks, sticking her lower lip out and blinking. It’s a move Derek’s seen her pull several times, though usually in a quest for ice cream or popcorn after dinner and not the future of his love life. 

“That means I can’t promise anything but it might be a possibility,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Is that something you’re okay with?”

Lily squirms, yanking her hands from Stiles’ grasp and setting them on his cheeks. “Daddy. I have told you a trazillion times that I want dogs. _Yes_.”

“Well, I’ll take it,” Stiles says, looking amused. Derek feels almost light-headed with relief, a weight he didn’t even realize he was carrying lifted. “Okay then, you’ve got thirty minutes to play with the dogs and then we’re gonna go so I can get ready.”

“Okay,” she says, skipping out of the room. “Don’t wear plaid!”

“Stop listening to your mother!” Stiles yells back, rolling his eyes. “Well—gotta admit, I think I lost three years of my life during that conversation. So, 6:00 good?”

They end up only making it through three games of Pac-Man before Stiles pushes him against the machine and kisses him slowly and thoroughly, hands anchored on Derek’s hips as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss, and both of them are breathing hard by the time it fades back into a soft press of lips. “So I know I kept saying this was our first date and none of the house stuff counted as a date,” Stiles says, “but—if we _did_ count all that—we could get out of here and head back to your place for the night, couldn’t we?”

Derek’s never heard a better suggestion.

_Epilogue_

Derek’s halfway home when his phone rings through his car speakers, the obnoxious sound of whatever indie emo band Stiles programmed as a ringtone for himself making him jump before he reached forward to connect the call. “I’m on my way,” he says as a greeting, eyes jumping to the clock on the dash. “I know I’m running late—”

“I forgot the cake,” Stiles says in a rush, and Derek swears under his breath and flicks his blinker on, merging into the turn lane so he can head back the way he came. “Shit, fuck, I was so busy trying—”

“I just passed the bakery a few minutes ago, I’ll turn around,” he says. “Did you get the—”

“Yeah, I picked it up on the way to the school,” Stiles says, “she can’t wait to bash the thing open, she disappeared and came back with a baseball bat from god knows where, I was just going to have her use a broom but apparently we go big or go home. That sucker won’t last three swings.”

He makes the illegal u-turn, keeping his eyes on the rearview mirror, but no flashing lights appear. Stiles’ paranoia about his father’s deputies following him is clearly rubbing off. “I’ll be home in fifteen,” he says. “Think I’ll have time to change?”

“Yeah, they’re all out chasing the dogs around in the yard right now, she might not even realize you’re missing,” Stiles says. “She certainly doesn’t care that I’m around, just went out of her mind when Scott and Allison showed up. Okay, I gotta go, I think the pizza guy is coming up the drive. Love you.”

“Love you,” he says, ending the call. It doesn’t take long to grab the birthday cake from the bakery and settle the box, carefully taped on the sides, onto the passenger seat of his car; he drives home slowly, parking on the street when he sees the cars double-parked in their driveway. There are balloons lining the walkway and a happy birthday banner across the porch, a giant number eight made of flowers stuck to the front door. He’s been lucky enough to celebrate two birthdays with Lily in this house, the one he poured his heart into for Stiles, and he loves walking through the door with the knowledge that this is the place that will be home for the rest of his life. They’ve yet to make it official—Stiles had wanted to take things slowly for Lily’s sake, but lately Derek’s found himself daydreaming of weddings and more kids, rubbing the spot on Stiles’ finger where a ring should be when they’re curled up together on the couch or in bed.

He can hear the noise and laughter in the backyard; the patio looks crowded from the quick look he gets as he sets the cake on the table that’s already crowded with pizza boxes and cans of soda, and he hesitates for a moment, wanting to go greet his family, but he thinks if he walks out there now he’ll never get the chance to clean up so he hurries up the stairs and starts the shower.

Stiles is sitting on the edge of the bed when he gets out; he gives Derek a blatant once-over before winking. “Lily asked me for another birthday gift this morning,” he says, clasping his hands together in front of him. “I told her she had to ask you.”

Derek laughs, leaning towards him and shaking his wet hair in Stiles’ face before kissing him briefly, one hand on Stiles’ shoulder for balance. “You trying to make me the bad guy?”

He’s teasing, but Stiles gives him an unusually serious look. “Derek,” he says, “I know it’s her birthday, but you can say no. I already told her you might and that she just had to accept your decision.”

He frowns, scanning Stiles’ face for any type of sign and finding none. “What does she want?”

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” Stiles says, face cracking into a small smile. “It’s nothing to worry about, babe, it’s just a big ask so I wanted your input. I asked her to wait until everyone left but she’s pretty pumped up so I fully expect her to corner you at point before the party is over.”

Derek hesitates with his hand on the towel still wrapped around his waist. “You think I’ll say no?”

“I refuse to influence your decision,” Stiles says, standing up. “You want her to ask now, don’t you? God, no one in this house has any type of patience. You pretend, but I see through you. Get dressed,” he says, opening the window that overlooks the backyard. “Lily! Come on up here!”

He’s just pulling on a shirt when Lily bursts through the door, all long limbs and bright smile, Stiles’ daughter through and through. “Happy birthday,” he says, catching her and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Heard there’s another gift you want.”

She leans against him, beaming. “Sit down,” she says, gesturing to the bed, and Derek looks over at Stiles for a moment, amused, before doing what she asks. He offers his hands when she reaches out for them and meets her gaze. “I know that you and Dad are taking me to Disneyland for my birthday because I accidentally heard Dad telling Uncle Scott,” she says, and giggles when he arches an eyebrow at her. “Okay, fine, I hid under Dad’s desk because I was trying to figure out what my gift was,” she says. “But it’s like—”

“The point sometime _today_ , Lilianna,” Stiles says, sitting down next to him, hand coming to rest on Derek’s thigh. “You have a party to get back to.”

She nods sharply, opens her mouth and stops, looking over at Stiles anxiously. Derek squeezes her hands and pulls her in, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her temple. “It’s okay,” he murmurs quietly.

He feels her arms wrap around his neck as she draws a breath in. “I want you and Dad to get married and I want you to be my dad,” she says, and Derek buries his face into her neck for a moment, hugging her tight. Stiles’ hand moves off his thigh; he feels him grab Lily’s hand for a second before he rests his hand against Derek’s back, rubbing in slow circles. “Will you?”

“Of course,” he says, kissing her temple again, and when she pulls back she holds her hand out, a pair of rings sitting neatly in her palm. He reaches out and picks one up, rubbing his finger against the familiar worn gold, tilting until he could see the _forever_ engraved on the inside. “This was my dad’s,” he says, looking over at Stiles. “Mom had _always_ engraved on hers. She gave this to you?”

Stiles’ hand runs up his back and cups around his neck, tugging him closer. “A few months ago,” he admits, reaching out and picking up the other ring. “This was my dad’s—it’s a little funny, my parents had _always_ and _yours_ engraved on theirs, so now—if you want to wear these, we don’t have to—but if you do, we have _forever yours_. I thought it was a good sign, that they already go together.” 

Lily wiggles the rest of the way out of his grasp. “I love you,” she says, darting in to kiss his cheek. “I gotta go ask Mom for my other present now.”

Stiles straightens up next to him. “Wait, what other present?”

“A sister!” Lily yells, already clattering down the stairs, and Stiles sighs. 

“Christ. Well, we’ll deal with that later. But—yeah? You’ll marry us?”

He laughs, turning to hug Stiles and pulling them both backwards onto the bed. “I can’t believe you had your kid ask,” he says; he tries to make it mocking, but he feels giddy and he thinks if he smiles any wider, his cheeks might crack. “Yes, Stiles. It’s a yes.”

“Awesome,” Stiles breathes, and scrambles to straddle him. “Um, I was gonna give you my dad’s ring originally but then your mom gave me your dad’s, so whichever one you want to wear is fine with me. You don’t have to choose now, you can think about it. We need them resized anyway, they’re both too big for me and I’m pretty sure they’re too small for you.” He leans down and kisses Derek, just a quick brush of his lips before springing back up. “Okay,” he says, “we should get back down there before all hell breaks loose. First one to con an unsuspecting soul into taking my— _our_ kid tonight for an impromptu sleepover picks how we celebrate our engagement.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to [reblog on tumblr](https://elisela.tumblr.com/post/639530289573527552/happy-birthday-tylerhunklin-to-build-a) 💜


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